


If I Could Fly

by anglophileadventures



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Wings, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Wingfic, basically canon compliant except for the wings, brief suicide mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 03:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anglophileadventures/pseuds/anglophileadventures
Summary: Before sending each boy up in the Maze, WCKD surgically attached wings to them. The Maze is a massive, three-dimensional cage trapping them in the Glade from above, and the new Greenie just might be the key to freeing them all.





	If I Could Fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evekle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evekle/gifts).



> Written to fulfill a request for a wing au for the Maze Runner Secret Santa 2018! I hope you enjoy it, and have a happy holiday season!
> 
> Huge thank you to Rach for beta-reading and offering so many helpful suggestions when I was stuck. You were a wonderful help!

“How’s his condition?”

“Still stable.”

“Good. I’m almost done, and then we can close him up and send him on his way.”

“Why are we even bothering with this?”

“I don’t worry about why we do what we do, that’s above my paygrade. I just do what I’m told. They tell me to put wings on the kid, I put wings on the kid. Who cares why.”

“No, I meant _this one_ in particular. He’s not even immune, it seems like a waste of time and resources.”

“Like I said, I just do what they tell me. I stopped trying to find rational reasons for what WCKD do a long time ago.”

“You don’t think they’re going to find a cure?”

“I don’t know, maybe they will. Crazier things have happened. But all this, with the kids and the wings and the maze - it seems insane to me. But hey, a job’s a job, right? And it keeps me away from the cranks. And who knows, maybe they’ll surprise me. Alright that’s it, sew him up.”

“You know, I kind of feel sorry for him. Even if he makes it through the Maze Trials, he’s basically doomed.”

“No more doomed than the rest of us. At least he’ll have a few years.”

“If he survives the Maze, that is.”

“True.”

“Okay, I’m finished. He’s good to go.”

“Great. Let’s get him out of here.”

* * *

_All alone, a boy with beautiful, large white wings sprouting out of his back climbs a cliff wall. He can’t even remember the train of thought that brought him here, but it feels inevitable, like he’s a twig floating on a river, being carried downstream. It’s too late to change course now._

_The wings growing from his back are those of a swan. He knows this the same way he knew his name when he woke up; but everything else is missing. Everything of importance. Everything that matters, that makes him who he is. It’s all gone. He can remember generic things, stories that don’t belong to him; but where his own stories should be there’s nothing but a giant blank space. His memories were stolen, and in their place the thieves left these wings. It’s fitting, in a way._

_Like Icarus, he tumbles to the earth, wings still._

* * *

When the Greenie comes up, as usual, the first thing everyone looks at is his wings. They try to guess, based on size and shape, what type of bird they were inspired by. It can be difficult to tell sometimes, since they’re scaled up to be proportional to a human boy, but there are still clues.

Newt thinks he must be some type of raptor. The last time they got a raptor was Ben, who turned out to have the wings of a golden eagle, but the newbie’s have more pointed tips. Their long, narrow shape most closely resemble Brandon’s, who is a merlin, which makes Newt think the new boy must be some type of falcon.

Newt isn’t alone in his assumptions, and since Ben’s arrival was months ago and raptors are still relatively rare, the new boy is something of a novelty. His wings are on the small side, a bit scrawny-looking, rather like the boy they’re attached to, but clearly built for speed.

He’s hauled out of the box, and he hits the ground running, already demonstrating the power and speed he has the potential to achieve. They flap quickly but somewhat haphazardly; the Greenie hasn’t gotten used to his extra appendages yet and doesn’t know how best to use them. They end up being more of a hindrance than a help, and the Greenie trips, rolling head over heels before coming to a halt, limbs sprawling.

Newt laughs along with everyone else, but something inside him sparks to the new boy. Without knowing anything about him, not even his name, Newt knows there’s something special about this Greenie. Something different. And Newt knows that above everything else, he wants to get to know him better.

There’s the usual whispers whenever they get a newbie with bird of prey wings. Jeff, a clever boy with the wings of a swallow, swears he’ll be a Flyer within the month. Boys with raptor wings do tend to become Flyers, as was true with Ben, along with Brandon and Rob (turkey vulture), but that’s not always the case: Zart, who has screech owl wings, works in the Gardens, and Dan, with those of a homing pigeon, puts his incredible long-distance endurance to good use as a Flyer. Newt listens silently, taking in everything but offering nothing in return, his face carefully blank as he soaks it all in and stores it away.

Alby introduces him briefly, his colossal albatross wings (built for epically long-distance flights, for coasting months or even years without landing) comically dwarfing the Greenie’s much smaller falcon wings. But he doesn’t get to have a proper conversation with the boy until later, sitting together on a log by the fire.

They’re alone, for now at least, and Newt wants to make the most of it. They chat about Gally’s brew, and about Gally himself, a tall boy with the wings of a gull, with whom the Greenie had a bit of a brush earlier just before the doors closed. He had been climbing the cliffs surrounding the Glade, trying to get a closer look at the massive domed ceiling enclosing them and the small opening in the centre, which led up into the Maze and which every evening was sealed by horizontally sliding stone doors, when Gally had confronted him and herded him back down to the ground.

Although he was probably in no real danger, as he couldn’t possibly have gotten close enough to the Maze without having gained the coordination yet to fly up to the opening, they have had a few close calls with Greenies in the past straying too close to the shutting doors, some even almost getting their wings caught or losing a few flight feathers. Gally can be abrasive, but for the most part, he’s a decent guy, and Newt tries to get that across. Then, as always, the conversation turns to the Maze, their prison, and then to the wings.

“Are the people who put us here the same people who gave us the wings?” the boy asks.

“We assume so, but we don’t have any real proof,” Newt tells him. “We know they were surgically attached, though, because you can see the scars.”

“Really?” he asks, interest piqued.

“Yeah, take a look,” Newt says, reaching up and pushing the feathers on his shoulders aside to show the Greenie the faint but clearly visible scar tissue where avian skin meets human. When his curiosity is satisfied and he leans back, Newt asks, “Is it alright if I take a look at yours?”

He nods, and lets Newt look. The scar is much more fresh than Newt’s, but the skin looks healthy, not red or inflamed, which is a good sign. It’s only happened once, but there was a Greenie whose graft site became infected, and he died. Once was enough for Newt to always check newbie’s wings carefully, in case it happened again.

“Do you know what kind of wings you have?” Newt asks him.

“What?” The boy is confused; his face scrunches up in a way that makes Newt’s heart lurch and his stomach flutter.

He pushes the feelings away, unsure what to do about them, and answers the Greenie’s confusion. “When all of us have come up in the box, we’ve only remembered two things,” he says. “Our name, which we get in a day or two, and the type of wings we have, which we usually just… know.”

The boy is quiet for a while, and Newt can see by the faraway look in his eyes that he’s searching. He licks his lips distractedly, like he can almost taste the answer on the tip of his tongue, and then he turns back to Newt. “I think… I’m a peregrine falcon? Or, I mean, my wings are. I don’t know, that just feels right. I didn’t know that I knew that until I thought about it just now.”

Newt smiles. “That’s the way it is for all of us.”

“What… what are the wings _for?_ Why would they give us wings? I mean - ” the Greenie blinks rapidly, trying to assemble his thoughts. “I don’t actually _remember_ not having wings, but I know that humans don’t normally have wings, and they sort of feel… new, like I’m not used to them yet.”

Newt shakes his head. “I honestly have no clue,” he says. “There are theories, sure, but I found a long time ago that wondering about it obsessively can do more harm than good. There’s so many possibilities, but most of them are not much fun to think about, and we can never know for sure one way or the other. If you’re not careful, it can drive you mad.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

Newt’s heart stops for a second, and adrenaline spikes through his system, but he looks over and the boy is smiling. He’s making a joke, not realising how close to the truth he actually is.

Newt smiles, and forces a laugh, though his heart is still beating unnaturally quickly. “I guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

The boy laughs, and his laugh is genuine, unreserved. It makes Newt want to know him even more than he did before. It makes Newt want to be the one to make him laugh, again and again.

“Sorry, you set me up so perfectly, I couldn’t _not_ make that joke.”

Newt chuckles along with him, and it makes his heart feel a little bit lighter. It’s nice, in a way, being with someone who has no idea about what happened to him, who doesn’t feel the need to walk on eggshells around him. It makes Newt feel like he can be someone else, someone less damaged. Someone more whole.

It’s been long enough now since the incident that there have been plenty of Greenies who never saw Newt before he broke his wing, and even among those who were in the Glade at the time there are precious few who know the truth about what happened, but he’s always had the feeling that everyone somehow just _knows_ that he’s damaged, even if they don’t know the details, and that they treat him differently because of it. It could simply be his own insecurities making him feel this way, but it’s refreshing to talk to this newbie and feel like for once someone isn’t treating him like a fragile, breakable thing. Someone feels comfortable making a joke about madness around him and doesn’t freeze as realisation dawns in their eyes and regret blooms on their face.

“So, no one really knows why we’re here, or why we were given the wings?” the boy asks more seriously.

“Not really,” Newt admits. “But I do have a little theory about why they chose certain wing types for certain people.”

“Oh yeah?” The boy perks up. “What is it?”

“I think we have wings that sort of match our personalities a little bit. For example,” Newt cranes his head over his shoulder, looking for someone to start with, and settles on Alby. “Alby has albatross wings, and like an albatross he’s strong, and he has a lot of stamina, but he had a hard time starting out. He’s a leader, but that also isolates him, so he’s a bit of a loner like an albatross too.”

“What about Gally?” the other boy asks, still sounding annoyed.

“Cheeky bastard,” Newt says, cracking a smile that the Greenie returns. “He has gull wings, so he’s clever, but he uses his intelligence as annoyingly as possible. And he _will_ steal your food if you turn your back for even one second.”

The Greenie laughs, and Newt feels a thrill. He turns back to the crowd of boys again. “Remember I told you about Minho earlier, how he’s the Keeper of the Flyers? He has the wings of a hawk: powerful and strong, fast, with sharp eyes too. That’s why he’s so good at being a Flyer.”

“Do you think I would be a good Flyer?” the boy asks. “Peregrines are really fast, aren’t they? Maybe my wings mean I’m fast too.”

“Maybe,” Newt allows. “But you should probably settle in before you go running headfirst into danger.”

The Greenie gets a sly smile, as if to say that settling in first isn’t really his style, and Newt feels a kernel of dread settle into the pit of his stomach. The Greenie seems to be lacking a healthy sense of self-preservation. Newt’s feelings are at war; part of him wants to protect him and keep him far away from any danger, but part of him wonders if his instinct about the Greenie being different could be proven correct if he’s only given free reign and a chance to prove himself. The strength of the feelings on both sides of the argument scares him, and Newt casts about for someone else to talk about, someone more safe.

“Oh, you met Chuck before, right?” he asks, eyes landing on a short, chubby boy, several years younger than the rest of them, with bright, lime green wings.

“Yeah, he was the one who showed me the sleeping area.”

“Well, Chuckie has finch wings, because he’s cute but annoying.”

The Greenie laughs again. Newt feels a rush of accomplishment, and a light blush tinges his cheeks. He looks down, a smile growing on his lips.

“This might be a dumb question, but… why can’t I fly?” the boy blurts out in a rush. He sounds like he’s been building up to this question for a while, gathering his courage. He looks over at the fire, where several boys are goofing off, gliding and swooping around or moving along the ground in elongated hops buoyed by a few powerful wingstrokes. His gaze is almost wistful.

Newt smiles. “You can, you just haven’t learned yet. It takes all of us a few days to get coordinated enough and to practice flying. But don’t worry, you’ll be soaring with the rest of them soon enough.”

The Greenie nods, still halfway lost in thought. “When you first came up, did you feel… lighter than you thought you should be?”

“Yes,” Newt confirms. “We think they did other stuff to us too, the people who gave us the wings, because with the wings alone we shouldn’t be able to fly, we’d be too heavy. Years ago, one of the Flyers broke an arm, and the bone looked like a honeycomb inside, like it had been hollowed out to make us lighter. And…” Newt trailed off, feeling awkward about how to break the news of the next part to the newbie.

“What?”

“Well… you might notice that your, um, your bowel movements are a little different than you think they should be? A little… looser.”

“Oh,” the boy says. First he blushes furiously, but then he laughs, sounding surprised but endlessly amused. “Really?” He laughs again, as though the idea is only getting funnier.

Newt is still embarrassed, and can’t help but match his colour but without the accompanying laughter. “We think they, uh… took out some of our intestines, too. To make us light enough.” He looks at the ground, too embarrassed to look the other boy in the eye.

The Greenie stops laughing. “Oh,” he says, and shivers. “Actually, that’s sort of horrifying. How could they do all this to us? _Why_ would they do all this?”

Newt blinks back the sudden sting of tears in his eyes. “It’s awful. It’s so violating. But I guess that’s why most of the time I try not to think about it.”

They’re both silent for a few moments. “Tell me more about the Flyers. Are you a Flyer?”

Newt eyes him shrewdly. “Thinking about trying to escape?”

“Maybe,” comes the evasive answer. “Are you?”

Newt sighs to himself. His distraction attempts have been fruitless, and all he’s managed to do is bring the Greenie’s thoughts back around to becoming a Flyer and charging into the thick of things as soon as possible. “I was, in the beginning,” he says.

“Can you tell me more about the Maze? What’s it like?”

“It’s… it’s huge, and it feels like it goes on forever. You have to fly to be able to reach it, and you have to be agile enough to be able to make the sharp twists and turns, and you have to have enough endurance to be able to keep going so you don’t, you know, plunge to your death. The vertical passages are the hardest. In some places it just goes up and up and up, and you get so tired of flapping. There are some ledges and places you can stop to rest, but sometimes it takes even more energy to get flying again once you’ve stopped.”

The boy is quiet for a minute, thinking over this information. “You said you _were_ a Flyer, in the beginning? Why aren’t you one anymore?”

“Well…” Newt trails off, shrugging. “I, uh… I had an accident.”

“What happened?” the boy asks, brow furrowing. “Does it have something to do with why your wing is crooked?” He gestures up to Newt’s right wing, the one that was broken years ago, and never fully healed. “Sorry, I wouldn’t have asked,” the boy says quickly. “But you mentioned the accident, and I just thought…”

Newt’s mouth twists wryly. “It’s ok, you might as well know,” he says. He pauses for a moment, thinking. “It’s nothing too dramatic, really,” he says finally. “I used to be a Flyer, but one day I just took a turn too sharply and fell, and I landed wrong on my wing, and, well… that was that.” His stomach is in his throat, hating the lie, but unwilling to reveal the truth. He waits to see if the Greenie believes him.

The boy is still looking at his crooked wing. “Can you still fly?” he asks in a hushed whisper.

“Yes, but I’m a lot more clumsy now. Not quick enough to be a Flyer, anyway.”

The boy stares at the fire, eyes glassy. After a few moments, he speaks. “What kind of wings do you have?”

Newt breathes an internal sigh of relief. “Swan,” he says.

“They’re beautiful,” the boy says, almost absentmindedly.

“Beautiful but useless,” Newt comments. “I’d rather have something like yours.”

“You know, people think swans are these delicate, pretty things that are only good to look at,” the boy says, making an effort to sound casual that Newt sees right through, “but they’re actually really strong and can be vicious if attacked. A swan’s wings can break a human’s arm.”

Newt watches the other boy without saying anything.

“If your theory is true, maybe that says something about you,” the boy continues.

“Yeah?” Newt says, breaking into a smile. “What does that say about me? That I’m vicious?”

The boy looks earnest. “That you’re stronger than you look. And you’re not just pretty, you’re a force to be reckoned with.”

Newt blushes. “Did you just call me pretty?”

The boy ducks his head shyly. “I guess I did, yeah,” he answers.

Newt scrambles to cover his embarrassment at the compliment. “Well, I think I’ve held your attention all to myself long enough. You’re supposed to be the guest of honour, after all. Why don’t I show you around, introduce you to some people?”

Is it his imagination, or does the Greenie look a little disappointed? “Sure, let’s do it.”

First stop is Frypan, the cook with a distinct black and white barred pattern on his sparrow-weaver wings. Fry gives the newbie some bacon, which he wolfs down like he hasn’t eaten in days. Zart’s there too, fluttering down from his roost and landing silently, soft-edged flight feathers dampening any sound his wings might have made. He stares at the Greenie, wide eyes unblinking as he gnaws on an ear of corn. Newt thinks this is the most alert he’s ever seen Zart, who has a hard time staying awake during the day.

Then Newt takes the Greenie around the fire, telling him about the various groups. They pass by Gally and his fellow Builders, playing a game where two boys fly around, trying to knock the other out of the air. Gally usually wins.

“Over there we’ve got Builders,” Newt says, keeping a running commentary. “They’ve got a fair good mix, some waterbirds, some pigeons, a couple of songbirds. They’re good with their hands, but overall not the sharpest lot you’ll ever meet, except Gally, of course. That’s why he’s their Keeper.”

They reach the next group. “And we’ve got Winston, he’s the Keeper of the Slicers,” Newt says, pointing to a boy with the wings of a mourning dove. “The funny thing about them is that a lot of them are game birds; pheasants, quail, partridges.” He indicates each example in turn as he names them. “I don’t know if that’s just a coincidence or some kind of cruel irony.”

He points out two more boys flying past overhead. “Couple of Med-jacks, Clint and Jeff.” Jeff shows off his tight manoeuvering ability with some aerial acrobatics, and Clint flits along behind him, delicate hummingbird wings going a mile a minute. Jeff calls out a greeting to Newt as they pass, and Newt waves. “They spend most of their time patching up the Slicers,” he tells the Greenie with a teasing smile.

Just at that moment, Gally sends his opponent sailing towards them, and he crashes into the Greenie and knocks him forward, almost off his feet. Everyone turns to look at them, and Gally takes the opportunity to try to goad the Greenie into a match.

“Come on, Gally, he hasn’t even learnt to fly yet,” Newt protests, but the Greenie steps forward, a determined look on his face.

“I want to give it a try,” he says firmly. “How do I fly? Do I just - start flapping?”

Newt looks over at Gally, who winks at him, which Newt supposes means that Gally won’t be too rough with the Greenie. He sighs and gives Gally a nod, who starts giving the Greenie instructions on how to get up into the air.

Though he’s clumsy and far from graceful, he does manage to stay off the ground, which is more than a lot of Greenies have been able to do on their first day. He lurches this way and that, looking like he’s about to plummet back down to the earth with every awkward flap. Gally’s clearly showing off, swooping circles around the Greenie and dive-bombing him, only to pull up at the last second and fake him out.

Until he doesn’t, and he pushes the Greenie, who goes spinning off and barely manages to right himself before crashing. Everyone laughs, except Newt who bites his lip and tells himself that the Greenie will be fine, that Gally knows his own strength and knows the other boy’s limitations and won’t let anything serious happen to him.

Then the Greenie manages to get his own back, by waiting for Gally to attack again and using his momentum against him. Newt and the others cheer, happy to see Gally be the one to go sprawling for once. But like the Greenie, Gally stops himself just before he hits the ground, and recovers. He flies up underneath the Greenie, taking him by surprise, and yanks him down by his legs.

The Greenie is so shocked he doesn’t have time to counter, and before he’s realised what’s happened he slams into the ground. Newt winces, watching his head bounce roughly on the hard-packed dirt.

The Greenie groans, and it takes him a few seconds before he gets back on his feet. Through the clamor of boys talking, laughing and shouting, Newt sees him mumble something to himself, but he can’t hear what it is. Then he repeats it again, louder.

“Thomas!”

Everyone falls quiet, watching him.

“I remembered my name, I’m Thomas!” he shouts, looking delighted for someone who’s just been abruptly knocked out of the air.

For half a second there’s silence. Then Alby jumps up, a broad smile on his face, and shouts “Thomas!” Everyone cheers and applauds, happy to finally be able to welcome the Greenie by name.Even Gally shakes his hand, showing there are no lasting hard feelings.

As they all settle down for the night, Newt allows himself to relive those moments with Thomas. He wonders if his first impression of Thomas being different has anything to do with the tingling feeling he gets in his stomach whenever Thomas looks at him, and his desire to continue getting to know Thomas better, or if those things are unrelated.

For some reason, Newt wants to convince himself that they’re unrelated. Maybe he even wants to get to know Thomas better _because_ he senses that he’s special. He hasn’t done anything spectacular yet, but he does seem to have the makings of a good Flyer. Maybe after a month or so, Minho can start training him, and they’ll see what he can do.

Newt drifts off with the thought echoing in his mind of _maybe, maybe…_ and the tiny seeds of something blooming in his chest, something he hasn’t felt in a long time.

* * *

When the next Greenie comes up in the box, there are three unusual things: first, that this is the second Greenie in two days, when before they’ve always come exactly one month apart, like clockwork. Second, that the new Greenie is a girl, when they’ve only ever been sent boys before.

And third, she has no wings.


End file.
